China 9 Liberty 37, Mirror Mirror, Snow White and the Huntsman, Magic Mike

Monte Hellman's China 9 Liberty 37 starts out with a spaghetti-ish (not to mention noirish) premise. Legendary gunslinger Clayton Drumm (Fabio Testi) is offered a deal: be hanged or go shoot the railroad company's former killer-for-hire Matthew Sebanek (Warren Oates) whose farm stands in the way of said railroad's expansion. When Clayton arrives at Sebanek's farm, he chances upon Catherine (the luscious Jenny Agutter) bathing naked in a stream.

The stranger who comes upon an isolated house and an ambivalent marriage; we pretty much know how this plays out, only with Hellman we don't exactly know how things plays out, and character as much as conflict has a role in determining the narrative's wayward progress. Hellman's trademark pacing (something a bit more leisurely than a horse's lope) sometimes erupts in sudden, vicious, superbly staged and shot violence (a showdown between Clayton and one of Matthew's brothers comes to mind); said pacing also hides the tensions simmering beneath. Matt knows Clayton was sent to kill him; Matt and Clayton like each other (both are hardened professionals tired of their profession); Catherine and Clayton like each other too. If the actors look as if they're a little lost that's not a flaw in the performances but a natural reaction to being in a Hellman film: so many undercurrents and subtleties crossing each other you have to be careful not to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. 

Arguably the most confident performer here is Oates; having given Hellman the definitive portrait of American machismo at its most unconfident in Two Lane Blacktop he knows enough to armor Matthew with the most obtuse of surfaces, the better to hide his true intentions--which we learn about anyway, of course. Hellman puts up people with varying skills at deception and self-deception (even Testi's open-faced Clayton plays the game), that in the course of his films are gradually stripped of their defenses, leaving a raw, aching awareness. A great western, of course, not the least because it feels so much more than one. 

Tarsem Singh can't really tell a story properly, but he's such a heedlessly fertile imagemaker one doesn't quite care. Mirror Mirror is his modernized take on the Snow White legend, and frankly it's a mess; it's also fun, with Lily Collins as the impish heroine and Julia Roberts in full-on comic mode as the malevolently vain stepmother queen. Scriptwriter Marc Klein and playwright Jason Keller manage to come up with sparkling rom-com dialogue between Collins and her Prince Charming, the heroically game Armie Hammer (he gets considerable comic mileage out of a less-than-dignifying spell that compels him to act like a dog), but the true star of the film is Singh's distinct visual style--exuberant and restless (but not to the point of ADHD), with a gift for imagery (Snow White's minaret palace rising high over a crystal lake from an impossibly curved crag) and dramatic sets (the hushed winter forest; the dwarfs' underground lodge; the ballroom with its breathtakingly cavernous entrance). 

A good chunk of the film's visual appeal are the costumes, by Singh's collaborator Eiko Ishioka with their soaring collars, sweeping capes, and ridiculous swan and sailing-ship hats (sadly, this was to be Ishioka's final work--she died before the film was finished). Call me smitten, but I think it all works--the actors are content to be smart and sassy and shallow, leaving all the real magic to be worked by the filmmakers, toiling away in the background. Easily Singh's most enjoyable picture to date.

And if that isn't convincing, check out Snow White and the Huntsman, Rupert Sander's LOTR-ized version of the legend. Serious themes, dark magics, and Charlize Theron in full Monster mode--for all her talent and beauty, Theron has never struck me as an actress with much of a sense of humor. She's so driven to make us see the acting behind the beauty that we're put off by the pushiness: "you want to be taken seriously, we get that; now back off!"

If Theron is too in-your-face, Stewart is too, well, comatose. She sleepwalks through the film with the same vaguely distressed expression she used during all four (five? I forget) Twilight movies, and frankly the ploy has become a bit wearying, if not soporific. Between the two actresses, one pathetically passive, the other psychotically aggressive, there's no point of dramatic contact whatsoever; it's as if they were acting in two completely different movies, neither of which I particularly liked. 

Sanders directs big, but it's an empty, unevocative kind of big; big sets, big action setpieces, no sense of drama, inspiration, artistry, no acknowledgement of the essential absurdity of the story (A beautiful virgin living with seven dwarfs, unmolested? Really?). There's a suggestion of feminist sympathy for the evil queen, but poor Theron lost me some time back, when she wouldn't even crack wise on the idea of eating a young girl's heart--c'mon, Charlize, not even an Andrew Zimmern reference?

Possibly the picture's low point is when Snow White comes to the heart of the forest, and a mysterious stag with monstrous antlers rises up to greet her (sounds familiar?). Rule number one when making bad movies: don't ever remind the audience of a better film; they might not come back in heart and mind to finish this one.

Steven Soderbergh is the hardest-working serious filmmaker in the business, arguably; his Magic Mike is his low-budget take on favorite star Channing Tatum's life story. The star has a charming, low-key presence, but cedes center stage to Matthew McConaughey's slimy strip club owner, a combination of six-pack abs, long unwashed hair, and fine wrinkles.

Film is nicely understated, the dance sequences nicely shot and choreographed (I can see Soderbergh being capable of doing a musical, though I don't see him wanting to--he's such an odd combination of the canny and straitlaced); several points of contention in a largely competent production: I'm not sure club customers look that consistently good, and the level of homoerotic denial ("Got all these hot women, so I ain't gay") in the air is so intense you can't help but sniff suspiciously for smoke.

Perhaps my biggest beef with the picture is that it ain't Lino Brocka; the club is too clean, the acts too wholesome, the melodrama too tidy. As I wrote in Cineaste, Brocka's Macho Dancer is unashamed exploitation (where Mike--again, too strenuously--keeps its head largely above the muck), and that's part of the film's political point. When it comes to male strip melodramas, make mine Macho.

7/30/12

Cabin in the Woods; Mirror, Mirror; Super Noypi; Citizens' Band; The Shanghai Gesture

The last word

Cabin in the Woods (2012) is fun, a deconstruction exercise the way Scream was only wittier and more imaginative, with some serious muscle behind the evil behind it all.

Best way to see it is go in knowing as little as possible, I'd say; Whedon's script lets you know quickly what kind of movie this is, then complicates matters as swiftly as possible.

I do like it that the film takes the time to individualize the characters--we get some sense of who they are, care if they survive or not. Also like it that the film pulls some fast ones in plausibility--some unlikely coincidences, some lucky breaks--that stretch but don't snap the rubber bands of credibility (can't recall the proper term, was best I could think of).

Joss calls this his reaction against torture porn; damn straight. We need more of this kind of horror, less of that dull torture fare.

Only wish Joss had directed it--think he's a fine director, that he can do more with the camera (even the handheld kind) than most directors his age, or younger.

It's just a fantasy

And to continue with the genre-benders, Tarsem Singh's Mirror, Mirror (2012) is every bit as sloppily told as his Immortals--sloppier, in fact--but for all the cheesy effects, the story does enjoy the benefit of a genuinely funny script, and a cast as good-naturedly game as it is energetic (the standout being Armie Hammer as the unreservedly silly prince--for once, genuinely charming--and Julia Roberts as the deliciously evil queen).

The film's real star is Singh, who (unlike, say, Gary Ross) knows how to stage and shoot sword fights--they come off as both coherent and inventive. He knows how to wring every ounce of drama out of his always impressive sets (a ballroom with a gigantic bow of an entrance; a cozy dwarves' den; an enchantingly enchanted forest) and his outrageous costumes (designed by the late Eiko Ishioka, whose work on this film was, alas, her last).  

Super hero

 Quark Henares' Super Noypi (2006) isn't without its share of problems--okay, more than its share of problems--and you can see what a frustrating experience this must have been for the filmmaker: he's finally gotten a decent budget, a chance to show what he's got, and he's forced to fashion what he feels to be a piece of ordure. 

But after all's been said and done--the movie isn't that bad. Yes, the effects are terrible and some of the sets and costumes worse; yes the storytelling can at times seem painfully awkward. At the same time it manages to communicate the essential sanity of teens, it's inside them the way John Hughes likes to think he is (mostly with upper middle-class Caucasian teens, and a lot less often than you'd imagine). 

The plot twist when it comes is genuinely surprising, and surprisingly moving, and you can't help but note the differences between this and something like Chronicles: in the former the anti-hero commits crimes in the name of a wronged father or mother or beloved other; in the latter the anti-hero suffers his past hurts and his angst and doesn't really give a damn about anyone else...

Talk radio

Jonathan Demme's Citizen's Band (1977) is a lovely tribute to middle America--to ordinary people reaching out and annoying each other from hundreds of miles away (anticipating the Facebook culture by some twenty-six years). It's a colorful cast--a bigamous trucker; a hooker operating out of her trailer home; a seductive-voiced siren; an eager operator determined to enforce the rules of on-air courtesy (Paul LeMat) at the risk of life and limb.

The last is the hero of the film, for no other reason than that he has the most screen time, and has the unthankful task of trying to rein in his fellow conversationalists--not going to happen, but we have a time watching him try.

Charles Dickens might have written the screenplay to this movie, if he ran a ham radio: the sense of teeming, overwhelming life; the occasional touches of sentiment and pathos; the sympathy for all people, no matter how 'little.' These qualities shine through and feel like a updated version of his fiction, only Demme's has an unmistakable American quirk to it--every character there realizes he possess by birthright the opportunity to reinvent him or her self on a larger, more vivid scale, befitting the larger, more vivid landscape, and does so accordingly.

Come with me to the casbah, darling
 

Adopted from a play by John Colton, Josef von Sternberg's The Shanghai Gesture (1941) had to turn the original brothel into a casino, the drug addict into a degenerate gambler--but what a casino, and what a gambler! The club rises in a series of concentric circles, with a roulette wheel spinning at the very bottom, each circle embraced by wrought metal rails depicting paradisiacal birds and lush forests, the floors teeming with Asians and Europeans of every type indulging in every kind of vice. Think of Rick's Cafe conceived as an oriental Dante's Inferno--hell choking cheerfully in its own cigarette fumes.

(And who else should be spinning the bottom roulette wheel but Marcel Dalio himself? Obviously Michael Curtiz or his producers had seen this film and appropriated the man as a kind of Seal of Authentic Decadence for their own (frankly impoverished-looking) gambling den, in a far more wholesome (read: bland) melodrama)

As for the beautiful Eurasian Poppy (the name being the only hint left of the girl's original addiction), the censors kept Gene Tierney from really cutting loose, but she and Sternberg did their level best to suggest hedonism at its most amoral and monstrous, and damn if they didn't come close, with Tierney draped over every available sofa and bar counter and man, her luscious body poured into the various slinky gowns designed for her by her then-husband Oleg Cassini.

Censorship be hanged--it's a heedless spectacle where Victor Mature recites Omar Khayyam-like verses with all the relish of a Penthouse Forum Letter of the Month, where Ona Munro as Mother Gin Sling lovingly describes her sexual degradation from one big-city harbor to another, and Walter Huston as Sir Guy Charteris smiles icily, thinking himself protected by money and power, unaware of the fatal course his destiny is describing--a gradual but inevitable spiral into destruction and despair. A masterpiece, in short.

4.13.12

Immortals (Tarsem Singh, 2011)

Superhero salad

Consider poor Theseus. His divine father bequeathed on him godlike strength, but not godlike immunity to life's sorrows; his human father abandoned him to be raised by his mother. He's required to travel to Athens, encountering many dangers along the way, to claim his birthright; when he arrives his stepmother tries to kill him.

Theseus' father commits suicide; his best friend is captured by the Furies. He's considered one of Athens' greatest heroes, but no one would ever mistaken his life for a bowl of cherries. 

For whatever reason Theseus hasn't enjoyed the name recall of, say, Hercules; his life's story hasn't been adopted into half a dozen sword-and-sandal epics, nor has it been turned into a Disney movie musical. He is mostly remembered for his adventure against the Minotaur, a monstrous half-man, half-bull creature that lives in a labyrinth--wouldn't be surprised to learn that people are readier to remember the Minotaur than they are his name. He hovers in that Underworld of dimly regarded mythological figures--not quite familiar, not quite forgotten. 

Now he gets the exclusive multimillion dollar Hollywood 3D production treatment--only it isn't what it used to be. 3D has lost some of its luster, ever since the sequels to both the Pirates of the Caribbean and Kung Fu Panda franchises failed at the boxoffice. This production was obviously meant to cash in on the success of Clash of the Titans, not to mention the larger-than-life bloodbaths found in 300, but some of the bloom has faded from action-fantasy as well (Conan the Barbarian, anyone?). Knowing all this, I walked into the theater expecting to find a second-rate Clash; instead I found an intensely violent, exuberantly stylish comic-book action movie.

Tarsem Singh for much of his not-very-prolific career has been something of an eye-catcher. His The Cell (2000) I didn't much like--it dwelt too much on a cliché of a story, the hunt for a serial killer and his hidden victim--but it did feature said killer's more exotic fantasies, some of which involved hermetically sealed junk and desiccated corpses in the spirit of Jan Svankmajer (a master at conveying physical corruption). His The Fall (2006) was an altogether warmer, more winning project, the attempt by a disabled stuntman and his child friend to weave a fantasy of a story; Singh envisioned slow-motion action in a swirl of colors, set against an electric blue sky, largely desert landscapes, and ravishing Islamic architecture.

Immortals is a step forward and upwards--not a serial-killer hunt, nor an exercise in willed storytelling, but a retelling of the life of Theseus, one of the great Greek mythological heroes. Characterization is minimal--you barely know these people--but their expressions, their gestures, their voice delivery are consistently intense, outsized, intricate. They may be shallow, barely sketched-out people, but they're vividly, memorably so.

Like Louis Leterrier with his Clash of the Titans Singh makes heavy use of digital effects; unlike Leterrier Singh has formidable imagemaking abilities, and an awesome sense of drama--he'll frame tiny figures against a vast set, crawling across a polished floor like so many ants, or throw vivid colors across electric-blue sky and desolate land, against which he parades a procession of outrageous Eiko Ishioka costumes.

Like, say, Zack Snyder Singh likes to make extensive use of slow motion in his action sequences. Unlike Snyder, Singh has a genuine sensibility, one that draws inspiration from more eclectic sources (for The Cell Singh possibly viewed the works of Jan Svankmajer; for this film he's quoted as saying he's trying to emulate Michelangelo Caravaggio). Snyder's sources of inspiration? For 300 obviously Frank Miller (a good draftsman, but his historically distorted view of Thermopylae (not to mention racist and homophobic view of the Persians) plays out on a monotonous color palette--red on black on red on black...); for Watchmen it's pretty much Dave Gibbons (whose closely detailed realism is effective, not exactly inspired--you can't help but suspect the intricate camera moves found in the comics were closely scripted by writer Alan Moore).

Singh's basic approach to the material may be questionable (a comic-book look at Greek mythology?) but the man does know how to wield a camera, and to cut the resulting footage together in a rhythm designed to elicit awe, exuberance, a sense of majesty. Comic book? Well--yes, but consider: mythology was the Greeks' (and for that matter the rest of Western civilization's) way of telling elemental stories of lust, vengeance, ambition, pathos; they were colorful, dramatic, easy to comprehend. The gods were the ancient Greeks' equivalent of the superhero; like superheroes they maintained some kind of secret identity, showing themselves only in times of great crisis, and only to people who have proven themselves worthy. Like superheroes they (and their progeny) represented the Grecian virtues, Theseus in particular: bravery, loyalty, integrity, ingenuity in the face of impossible odds.

Immortals is short on humanity, long on the human body in all its speed, power, grace; watching this makes you almost want to go hurl a javelin, or run a really long course, or do something Olympian. If the gods had to pick an artist to do their 'graphic novel,' they could have done worse, much, much worse.

First published in Businessworld  12.8.11

Shorts (Hugo; Immortals; J. Edgar; The Killers, three versions)

Hugo

An intricate clockwork of a movie that spins and shudders, chimes and chatters, striking a brassy bell for the cult of cinephilia. Forget the ostensible story--something about some silly orphan hiding in a railway station (Why doesn't he seek a shelter? Or better yet, why doesn't the film show us why he refuses to seek a shelter?), at the same time seeking the parts to repair a broken-down automaton--and enjoy the film's true subject matter: the love of film, and of filmmakers. Martin Scorsese directs in two modes: with exuberance, and with a crystalline sense of still-eyed wonder, the kind Spielberg used to specialize in until all the honesty in the emotion was strip-mined away. Here it is again, fresh and new-minted, it seems--produced out of the tip of one's ear (after being given up for lost) as if by a prestidigitator's hand.

Yes there is slapstick--a sop for those with attention deficit disorder--but more to the point there is magic, mainly from Scorsese's camera, and mainly from the warmth radiated by Scorsese's irrepressible love for films. Wonderful picture and, thanks to the camerawork (by Robert Richardson) and production design (by Dante Ferretti), wonderful visual texture--one of the best to date to use 3D, easily.

Immortals

Now this is a surprise--from what all the critics are saying, I walked in expecting a secondhand, second-rate Clash of the Titans remake; what I found instead is a stylishly violent retelling of the Theseus myth. Tarsem Singh (The Cell, The Fall) arguably uses a similar style to Zack Snyder (300)--all slow-motion bombast, to follow an intricately dancelike fight choreography (I'm guessing they all get their inspiration from John Woo). Only Singh has been at it at least four years longer than Snyder, and Singh to my mind at least is the superior action filmmaker (his fight sequences are more graceful, more varied, less wearying on the eye). Plus he insists on papering his film with striking imagery--from Jan Svankmajer for early parts of The Cell, from Caravaggio for Immortals (Snyder's main source of inspiration for 300 is Frank Miller; for Watchmen Dave Gibbons). Considering it's mostly a straightforward superhero movie with a subpar script and little to zero characterization (you recognize the people mostly from their costumes, and basic physiognomy) it's not bad; not bad at all.

J. Edgar

Clint Eastwood's Hoover biography is actually pretty good. A little po-mo time-sequence shuffling, a nice little twist at the end reminding us what J. Edgar's been doing all along (controlling the narrative to tell his story his way), a tender little love story, all in that retro-seeming straight-shooting visual package that is Eastwood's trademark storytelling style. Maybe the film's biggest problem is fitting this appropriately to one of the most ambivalently repulsive figures in modern American history--yes, he contributed to law enforcement, the same time placing himself pretty much above said law; yes he possibly loved Tolson, possibly platonically, but denied the same opportunity to many other Americans--I think we need to see this more. Fascinatingly flawed, both film and figure.

The Killers (1946)

Siodmark's German Expressionist style rules this version of Hemingway's short story, which pretty much runs out some fifteen minutes in. The rest of the film tries to answer the question left hanging in the air: just what did he do that made him decide to stop running from death? It's an intricate answer, one that involves a double cross on top of a double cross (on top of as it turns out a third double cross), and a femme fatale as beautiful as Ava Gardner (who comes across as arguably the single most desirable creature onscreen, if not in all of Hollywood). Burt Lancaster as Ole Swede ain't chopped liver either--when he swings into action taking down a gunman, or runs across the screen to shoot his pursuers' tires he's raging-bull huge yet agile; all the more haunting, then, is the image of him lying down (as Hemingway chillingly puts it) “too long for his bed,” passively waiting for his approaching fate. Siodmak shoots Lancaster so that only his middle torso is visible, his head and legs sliced off by the surrounding dark as if by a guillotine; he already looks like a collection of body parts. When warned about the oncoming killers, his disembodied voice full of resignation and despair gives thanks for the warning but declares with finality: “I'm through with all that running around.” Absolute acceptance of an unavoidable fate: that's what great film noir's all about.

The Killers (1964)

Don Siegel's remake (it was an attempt to make the first ever TV feature, or so I'm told) suffers from budgetary woes: the soundtrack is partly borrowed from Welles' Touch of Evil, the racing sequences are all rear projection--poorly done rear projection, at that--and the producers couldn't even convince John Cassavetes to get behind a real set of go-cart wheels (Angie Dickinson, to her credit, is game). Still, the nastiness has if anything been intensified: Lee Marvin strides into a school for the blind and menaces the helpless receptionist; later he gives Ms. Dickinson similar treatment, only rougher. And it's not true that these killers aren't as playful as in Hemingway's story or Siodmak's version--in one scene, while Norman Fell is being sweated by Marvin, Clu Galager pulls off his shades, looks them over, wipes them clean on Fell's damp hair.

Siegel directs with economy and straightforward brutality. The harsh TV lighting and flimsy sets reveal this to be an appropriate version of The Killers for its age: crass and overbright, a nightmare dressed in cheap plastic and garish synthetic fibers, filled with sudden explosions (inserted footage that seems unreal and disconnected from the rear projection footage) and equally sudden impulses--like the one that has Cassavetes taking a swing at and knocking down Ronald Reagan, future President of the United States.

The Killers  (1956)

Andrei Tarkovsky's directorial debut, an adaptation of Hemingway's classic story. Easily the most faithful with regards to dialogue and text, the film is also the most wayward with regards to visual and emotional tone--the bartender looks like a tubercular Soviet student aesthete, the pair of assassins look as if they would rather order an expresso, and one of the customers seems to have wandered in from out of a Soviet dockyard workers' strike, possibly taking a break, another sports a beret (later Tarkovsky himself walks in, whistling a lively rendition of Lullaby of Birdland). Still, there is style here, a brooding use of camera movement and shadows harkening back to the German Expressionists (and, ironically, Siodmak) that is satisfying to see. Unfortunately, the scene involving Ole Swede's bedroom (directed by Alexandr Gordon) fails to show us the feet sticking out over the edge of the bed--a key detail.

11.27.11